


Lay the pipe

by bluebells



Series: Optional Paz/Din continuity [4]
Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Demisexuality, Found Family, Gen, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Ratings and warnings will change, THERE WAS ONLY ONE BED, Touch-Starved, chaotic bathing, in love and mad about it, so much pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-16 19:06:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29458707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebells/pseuds/bluebells
Summary: The fresher on the Crest breaks and that is only the beginning of Paz's no good, very bad week.
Relationships: Din Djarin & Grogu | Baby Yoda, Din Djarin & Paz Vizsla & Grogu | Baby Yoda, Din Djarin/Paz Vizsla, Grogu | Baby Yoda & Paz Vizsla
Series: Optional Paz/Din continuity [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1980532
Comments: 34
Kudos: 89





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I love it when puns work double time for you. The Twitter poll voted on sex pollen for Valentine's but this is sex pollen with plot, so instead of one instalment, this will go up in parts as quickly as I can write them.
> 
> Unlike other stories in this optional continuity, this is a direct sequel to [Store your material responsibly](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27559042).

The _Crest’s_ fresher is broken again. It’s the second time this week.

Paz squints from the datapad’s read-out to the open surgery of the pipes in the wall before him. The image keeps flickering from dim to _luminous_ by his visor’s auto-adjustment and it’s starting to give him a headache. His shoulders, almost too broad for the fresher, have forced him to strip down to his sleeveless undershirt to fit in the narrow space. At least he’s still armoured from the waist down. He ducks his head to avoid scraping his buy’ce on the fresher rim, stubbornly persevering with the blueprints.

He can do this.

He’s no engineer, but the colour-coded schematic tells him both filters and water supply are in their right places-- yes, their water reserves are running below twenty per cent but that doesn’t explain why the sonic won’t turn on at all.

“You need a hand?” a voice calls, and his shoulders bristle.

Behind him in the hold, seated upon one of the crates, Din is testing the child on shapes and colours. Not bothering to look back, Paz waves him off.

Din leaves him to it with an audible sigh. “Red,” Paz hears him say.

A sweet, quizzical chirp is his reply. Paz resists the impulse to glance over his shoulder.

“Good.” Din’s voice is still coarse from years of underuse but, with the child, an unmistakable smile warms and smooths its edges. “Now, blue.”

A longer pause. Eyes trained hard and unseeing on the datapad in hand, Paz’s ears strain in the silence.

“Nope. Try again,” Din says.

A low coo answers, tentative and hopeful. The sound tugs at Paz’s heart and he thinks of a classroom hollowed from bedrock, warm lamps ensconced in the walls. Tables of children, four a-piece, hunched together in conspiratorial whispers, giggling as their shoulders bumped and they compared their work of that morning’s assignment.

“Kaysh hibira Mando’a?” Paz asks, unable to help himself.

“Mando’a is for Mandalorians,” Din says, voice firm, and efficiently making Paz feel a fool.

_Not your ad. Not your clan, nor your ship._

Icy fingers close around his heart. The datapad somehow doesn’t crack under his hand. He grips one of the pipes and begins twisting it into place with a creak of complaint.

“While he’s your charge, he could learn,” Paz murmurs. “What harm could it do?”

“We’re taking him back to his people. He would forget.”

Unable to help himself, Paz looks back but Din’s helmet is bowed as he rearranges the child’s toys on the crate. Carefully still at their beroya’s side, the child blinks at Paz, large ears twitching as though attuning to something they can’t hear. He lifts a round object with a mewl of effort clasped between three large claws. A button?

Paz smiles despite himself.

“Hey.” Din gently draws the kid’s hand down. “Come on, focus.”

The little one deflates in disappointment, shoulders dropping.

Turning back, Paz pounds a fist on the panel above the pipes, scowling at the dotted rows that should have emitted cleansing waves of water or sound. He had followed the blueprint, removed the obvious contenders for fault and confirmed they were working before putting them right back. _Why was it not working?_

“Don’t break my ship,” Din warns.

“It’s not _your_ ship,” Paz reminds him, growling. “It belongs to the Tribe.”

Scattered and decimated, though they are. He shoves the painful thought aside before it can be chased by that familiar pang of longing. Paz should be out there looking for them, not battling old pipes on a pre-Imperial ship where he’s barely tolerated and clearly unwelcome.

His shoulders sag with a sigh.

But he only has himself to blame for that, doesn’t he? Because he made that-- _stupid offer--_

He shouldn’t have left that magazine out. It was supposed to be a gentle way for Din to confirm that, if he was interested, Paz _did_ like broad shoulders and thick thighs strong enough to strangle the air from his lungs. He had wanted to gauge the beroya’s reaction and the possibility of their tactile arrangement going any further.

What they have is… nice, though it comes without a name, clear terms or condition. Hands pushing up his chest every night, a thigh negotiating between his two, and the cool kiss of Din’s helm on the pillow of his shoulder. No matter what the day has put them through, how Paz and Din have snarled or laughed or endured each other, they honour this mutual refuge: when it’s time to rest, they rest.

They don't have to keep falling in together. It's an accident neither of them seems interested in correcting. Paz first reached out in their lodgings on Kamino and, like a fool, he is the one who keeps reaching. He would stop if Din didn’t accept so beautifully with that shy, silent duck of his head, clasping Paz’s hand like a lifeline.

Could they have enjoyed this when they had the luxury of ignoring each other with vode standing three shoulders deep? Watching Din now and feeling that mutual simmer of annoyance and affection, it is difficult to know.

The problem is that Paz is lonely.

An unsettling groan shudders through the fresher’s wall. Paz freezes at the mechanical cough of compressed air and water, realising a moment too late what’s about to happen and _absolutely does not shout_ at the spray that erupts, dousing him with high-pressure ice water at point blank range. Scrambling back, he almost slips in his haste, the datapad clatters to the deck and his hands skid over controls.

When the spray finally dies, he stands drenched through to his underclothes and shivering. 

Across the hold, Din is openly staring, hands limp in his lap, impassive and unappreciative of Paz’s personal sacrifice. At his thigh, the child’s ears press low with a chortling laugh, muffled by the silver ball he’s half-stuffed in his mouth.

 _“What?”_ Paz throws his arms wide, offended at Din’s long silence. Water drips from his bare fingertips.

Din’s voice is strained. “Was that the last of our water?”

Paz stares down at himself and the dark shirt clinging to him like a second skin. Osik.

///

“We need a real engineer,” Din declares, sifting through the index of nearby systems for options.

Patting himself dry with one of their few towels, Paz frowns at the child nuzzling his favourite toy in the co-pilot seat. Is that ball a choking hazard? Can the kid dislocate his jaw?

The navcomputer beeps affirmatively with the new heading Din has chosen. It’s not a planet Paz recognises. He backs up as Din straightens from his lean over the console, turning to face Paz and the child.

“I think he’s hungry again,” Paz gives the kid a significant nod. Din follows his gaze and the kid’s ears perk with a questioning trill under their combined attention.

“We need water, re-supplies and--” Din gestures widely, “Maybe another cot. Bunk. Something.”

That icy grasp squeezes again around Paz’s heart, but his instincts are irrepressible. He snorts a laugh under his breath, towelling the damp shirt of his abdomen. “Save us some credits. We can just magnetise you to the hull.”

Even through Din’s visor, the heat of his glare is electrifying. “Who said it was for me?”

An unhappy warble pierces the air and something metallic hits the deck with a _clink._ Paz watches the kid’s ball roll to a stop by his boot, glimmering in the low light of the cockpit. The little one is staring at them, eyes large and wet, a claw caught in the pout of his lips.

A mutual sigh passes between the two men.

“All right, kid.” Din heads for the storage behind the cockpit where they keep the dehydrated rations and Paz bumps the little one’s seat with his thigh, reaching down to gently rub that dejected wrinkle from his brow. It’s a little hard to distinguish from his normal wrinkles.

The kid meeps, chin disappearing into the thick collar of his robes before he settles. Paz smiles when the kid pushes up under his hand with a purr, eyelids heavy. 

“I’ll feed him,” Paz calls.

“You’re dripping all over my cockpit,” Din counters as though that’s somehow an obstacle to child-caring.

_Oh, spite._

Paz shakes his head and grabs the hem of his damp shirt, yanking it up and over his head. The abrupt cold on his bare skin is worth the unadulterated smugness of Din arrested on the threshold by shock, watching Paz wring his balled up shirt of every last drop on the pilot seat-- Din’s seat.

It’s more water than Paz expects. Okay, maybe he really was dripping. He stops when one of the drops bounces and splashes onto the console, suppressing a wince. 

Head tilted, Din points at him with the tray of rations like Paz is a rare and confounding specimen Din had the misfortune of crossing in a marketplace. “What is _wrong_ with you?”

The towel is slung over Paz’s shoulder with a slap. He swipes the rations from Din’s hand. “Maybe _I’m_ hungry, too.” He throws it like a taunt that makes any sense and Din groans in exasperation like it actually landed.

Din leans over to the child who blinks up at him, hands folded, perturbed. “Well, I hope you like dry protein, kid, ‘cause _this guy_ used the last of our water.”

Paz doesn’t look up from his fight with the tray’s packaging. “Go sulk at a wall, Djarin.”

Following his excellent advice, Din whirls on his heel with a stifled growl. He’s halfway down the ladder when he barks, “Clean up that mess!”

The packaging finally parts under a sudden excess of force. The kid squeals in delight, hopping to the edge of his seat as Paz pops the lid of the tin and gingerly sinks to his knees. The little one accepts the first dried morsel of kelp from his fingers, face pinching hilariously with an unmistakable wince of distaste. Chuckling, Paz, holds up the tray, allowing the kid to dig among the rest to find something he actually likes, something Din would never humour.

“I don’t know what you see in that guy,” Paz mutters.

The kid warbles around a mouthful of miscellaneous brown stuff and Paz decides to take it as agreement.

///

Time passes strangely in the blue of hyperspace with no horizon.

Paz isn’t sure how much later it is when the kid is finally falling asleep against his chest, bundled in the extra layer of Paz’s towel. He decided to stay in the cockpit after the kid declared he was done with mealtime by pushing the tray away like it offended him. 

After taking Din’s freshly dried seat, Paz tries very hard not to think about things like how hard Din will kick him when he gets down below. It’s just too easy to pick fights with Din. It’s also too much fun. Din should welcome something familiar, right?

Paz looks down at the baby dozing on his chest, nose nestled in the towel’s thick fold. Soft little snores soothe lingering irritation and allow him to let go of Din’s voice ringing in his ears.

Water, re-supplies and… something.

Paz swallows around the thud of his heart, throat abruptly tight. Subconsciously, he draws the child higher up to lean on his shoulder.

Din could just say he wants Paz out of his bed and be done with it, but he won’t because he’s a coward and will always be a coward.

“Though he went back for you, didn’t he?” he murmurs to the little one, who dozes on. This strange, beautiful child who is unlike anything Paz has ever seen.

What does the Empire want with him?

Paz doesn’t care. The fact those murderers want him so badly is reason enough to keep him from them. Looking into that face slack with sleep, the corner of the child’s mouth glistening with drool, a sudden longing grips Paz, stealing his breath.

God, he misses the Tribe. How many of them are still out there? How many did he not save?

His eyes sting viciously and he bites his tongue, forcing ragged breaths to slow until they can deepen, and finally clear, and he's no longer blinking through tears.

The navcomputer tells him it’s still eight hours until they reach their destination. The day has finally caught up with him and he doesn’t want to sit out the rest of their journey in this uncomfortable seat.

All lights are out in the hold when Paz goes below, save one above the weapons locker. It’s enough to see by and the realisation Din still thought to leave a light on for him, even if he was fuming, makes Paz reluctantly warm and fuzzy inside.

Din is on his back in their bunk, limbs sprawled in the meagre space as if to make the most of the rare opportunity to enjoy it all to himself. Stripped down to a thin long sleeve shirt and pants, the slow, deep rise and fall of his chest tells Paz he is asleep. Head cocked, Paz leans against the frame to drink him in, nourished by the rare sight of Din at rest.

He can almost forget how annoying Din is.

Eventually, his own weariness wins out. The kid chirps, an eye peeling open sensing the change in orientation as Paz settles him in the hammock above the bunk.

“Udesii… nuhoy, ad’ika.” Smiling, Paz strokes a thumb over his brow, back and forth. Those eyes slip back closed and soon those soft snores follow.

Din startles awake at the tug on his ankle, flailing as he’s pulled to the edge of the bunk with little ceremony. He stops his search for a weapon when reality comes into focus and he recognises the hulk towering between his knees.

_It’s too easy._

“Shabuir,” Din slurs with sleep, collapsing back on his elbows.

The bunk is too narrow for two people. It only works because Din lies between Paz’s thighs and has decided he can tolerate the circle of those heavy arms, too. It’s grown more difficult each time Paz watches Din raise a leg to kneel up, all but crawling between his thighs before sinking down against him. It’s _difficult_ because they fit together so easily. The lines of Din’s body flow into him and Paz has to remind himself his hands are not supposed to wander. He has not been invited.

Tonight, he gathers Din up with hands under his shoulders. A hot curl of satisfaction coils low in his belly when Din wraps around him, helmet flopping to his shoulder, letting Paz do all the work. Paz lifts and turns them, sinking back and pushing up the bunk until they’re reclining with Din in the cradle of his embrace. They both sigh, relaxing into the shape of each other and that fiery coil of interest diffuses to a warm glow through Paz's entire body.

Paz’s hands close under Din’s shoulder and low on his hip, holding him close. Paz is pretty sure his lungs are permanently compressed from all those nights of lying under Din’s weight. But if Din doesn’t complain about the erection he always wakes to find against his hip, Paz won’t mention his possibly bruised ribs.

It’s hard to watch Din with the child, and not stop and stare. It’s harder to feel Din fall asleep against him and not tug him closer.

So, back then, Paz _had_ to ask-- and Din all but fled to the cockpit rather than give him a straight answer.

But that was answer enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BYO plumber lewds but their shower really is broken okay, leave me your fave plumbing puns in the comments then come chat with me on Twitter about [gen and meta](https://twitter.com/bellsybuilds) or [ships and thirst](https://twitter.com/bellsyafterdark).
> 
>  **Mando’a translations**  
>  “Kaysh hibira Mando’a?” / “Is he learning Mando’a?”  
> “Udesii… nuhoy, ad’ika.” / “Shh… sleep, child.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is a wound festering in Paz that only the tactile comfort of his fellow vod and foundling can soothe. But each time Paz drags one of them close through pretence or necessity, he has felt too much like a thief. _He_ is the true coward.
> 
> And he has stayed too long.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: surreal violence in a dream setting and Team Razor Crest stumbling over each other in the dark (literally, leave a night light on)

The night Din returned to the covert, the air had been thick with tension.

It was a heavy sense of dread that Din brought with him from the land above, an invisible cloak weighing on his shoulders. He had tried too hard to appear relaxed while steadfastly avoiding any and all contact as he stalked the dark corridors and passed without the barest greeting.

Paz had risen to follow. By the time he arrived at the Alor’s forge, a small crowd had gathered. They parted easily at the sound, then sight of him.

Din hadn’t even bothered to look up, the proof of his depravity piled high and gleaming on the table. Nor did the Alor see fit to regard him, tenderly placing the slender beskar ingots in neat, perfect rows. Not in years had any of them seen such a bounty.

Suspicion whipped sharp and urgent in Paz’s chest, quickly confirmed.

He will never forget that day.

“These were cast in an Imperial smelter….”

Why does he still dream of that day?

The satisfying curl of his gloved fingers under the chin of Din’s helmet. The force with which Din had shoved him off, without hesitation. The shrill song of their vibroblades slashing the air.

_“Do you trust me?”_

Disoriented, Paz freezes in a deadly moment of hesitation and a swift strike to his knee tumbles him on his back. The bounty’s container is knocked aside, the beskar steel spilling with musical clinks beneath his body.

In his periphery, the Armourer stands unmoving, a golden and untarnished sentinel. Ultimately, unmoved. Beyond the threshold, throngs of their people watch in silence as Din spills over Paz’s form, sharp knees on his thighs, the deadly tip of his blade singing at the neck of Paz’s kute. His hands grasp reflexively at Din’s knees as though to stop him, but the heel of Din’s hand digs punishingly into the sensitive bend of unarmoured shoulder and chest muscle.

Din’s black visor is fathomless, drawing in all light around them. “Do you trust me?” He snarls, low and taunting.

Paz doesn’t understand, though his stomach swoops with familiarity. And... guilt?

The tribe are nothing but empty piles of armour strewn to the gutters as Din thrusts his blade under the jaw of Paz’s helmet and it cleaves through skin and flesh without resistance.

Paz startles violently awake in the dark. He claws at his throat where he can still feel the blade piercing his tongue. He pants, chest heaving, a silent scream burning in his lungs.

At first he can’t move, weighed down by an invisible, immovable force. He flails, panicked, and his arm knocks against one wall, then another-- he’s in a cage. He is blind. He is bound.

Where is he?

Fumbling-- Paz’s heart gives a hysterical kick as something moves against him.

“Ach-- _the fuck?”_ A voice hisses in the dark.

A dull blow shoves him low in the ribs and he buckles, snarling. He lashes out on instinct in a wide swing. His closed fist connects with something soft but solid, his heart plummets at the low grunt of pain, a thud of a body hitting the wall, and a subconscious part of him is distressed at the sound. But the damage is already done. 

His brain is waking quickly, alarm on the heels of oncoming realisation when that voice snarls again.

“Unbeliev--”

It doesn’t wait to finish, kicking him hard in the chest and sending him backwards head over heels into a short, terrifying drop. His boot catches on something as his buy’ce hits the steel hull.

Someone’s high, small squeak of terror freezes his heart. Something small thuds to a landing across the room.

The dark holds its breath in horror.

Slowly, heartrendingly, a baby begins to cry.

Reality comes crashing down, pains and night terrors almost forgotten as Paz shoves to his feet, stumbling as Din almost trips over him in their mutual haste.

“Kid!” Din cries.

Light spills into the hold and they rush beyond cargo netting and crates to the small, bundled form curled up on itself before the carbonite freezer, trembling. Paz catches himself, stopping a stride short as Din falls to the kid’s side, gingerly scooping him up in the bend of his arm as though he was made of glass.

“Hey, hey,” Din soothes, hushing the child with a gentleness few in the galaxy would ever believe. He rocks the little one clasped against the soft pillow of his chest and searches his face, his hands, then starts pulling back his robe. “Let me see, okay? You were startled, I know. I’m here.”

The child’s sniffling whimpers break Paz’s heart, made all the worse for those large dark eyes blinking up at his guardian through thick tears. Paz wants nothing more than to pull the two of them in his arms and take the little one into the palms of his hands until his gentle pressure eased those tremors. He wants to push up his helmet and can kiss apologies into those tiny hands, taking away all his pain.

Instead, he lingers and curls his hands into fists at his thighs to restrain himself.

“Din, I’m so sorry,” Paz’s voice catches in his throat. Ay, Manda, he struck Din, too. Another wave of horror washes through him, hot and sick. “It was--” does it even matter that it was a nightmare which brought him awake swinging? His heart thumps with a dull ache, answering the self-evident truth.

Din hasn’t looked at him, attention solely on the child as it should be. He sets the quivering form on the working bench where he usually stripped and cleaned his weapons or polished his armour.

“Get the med kit,” the beroya responds and Paz rushes to comply. He needs no direction. Locating the Razor Crest’s medical supplies was one of the first action he took upon boarding the ship. Tending to each other’s injuries is one of the unfortunate norms of their lives. But they were not meant to be inflicted by each other.

_Do you trust me?_

He feels like he’s having an out of body experience. Swallowing hard, Paz commands his hands to follow his orders and offers Din the bacta spray for any injuries he may find.

“I can’t--” Din brushes a bare hand over the child’s brow, and those large eyes blink slowly closed with a mew of comfort. “I can’t see any damage.”

Paz insists, offering the spray to him over the child’s body. “Do it. In case it’s internal.”

They don’t have a lot of bacta left, but Din doesn’t hesitate or argue. Paz helps, gently lifting the child and grateful the little one doesn’t flinch from his touch, folding easily in the cup of his hands.

Shoulder to shoulder and hunched at the table, they work together. Din unwraps those robes and applies a thin sheen of the healing spray from head to toe. “Close your eyes, close,” he gently urges. He turns the baby gently in Paz’s hold, lifting arms and knees to ensure no patch of skin is left uncovered. Eventually, Paz eases the kid up so the spray can dry, and his heart gives another guilty thump as the little one stands on wobbly legs, peering between the two of them with those big, sad eyes, ears pinned low.

The bottle is empty when Din sets it aside.

Paz lowers to the child’s level, settling on his knees. “I know, buddy, it’s cold, but you need to dry so the bacta can do its work,” he croons, soft and apologetic.

The child’s mournful chirp makes him feel like the worst person in the galaxy.

“I’m so sor-- _what are you doing?”_

Din barely glances at him and continues fanning the kid with his small, brown robe. “Helping him dry. He’s cold.”

“You’re making him colder,” Paz nods as the child betrays a fresh shiver in his tentative hold.

“And he’ll dry _faster,”_ Din counters, undeterred.

“You don--” Paz cuts off his retort at the child’s twist in his hands, whining sharply. They both stop, looking at him and his deep pout, slumped in Paz’s hands with his shoulders climbing towards his ears. 

Din sighs, bracing himself with a hand on the table, the other hand with the robe on his hip. 

Paz knows what he’s thinking and concedes under his breath, “Maybe we shouldn’t argue in front of the baby.”

The kid bleats a noise that Paz might guess is affirmative if he also believes the child could understand them that well, but he’s just a baby and that would be silly.

Din gives the robe one last flap for good measure, deciding that’s long enough. Paz holds their charge as the robe goes back on, first feet, then hands, and soon the child is perched on his bottom as Din clips his collar back in place with Paz’s hand braced behind his back.

“We’re two hours from our stop,” Din says, the status display fading from his vambrace.

Paz snorts under his breath. “Small point trying to rest now.”

“Was it a bad one?” Din asks.

Paz looks up at him from his kneel before the table, confused. Din looks at the baby instead, adjusting that small collar. His posture is stiff.

“Do you want to talk about it? The dream?” Din offers, voice careful.

It takes a conscious effort not to scoff in disdain at something that should be obvious. “What is there to talk about?”

He doesn’t think that’s the wrong thing to say until Din all but recoils from him, straightening with strange formality. His hands clench at his sides, hesitating over something. He steals a glance at Paz by his side. “I’m... sorry I kicked you.”

Paz stares at him. Din was apologising to _him?_

“I hit you first,” he corrects, stern. “I didn’t know where I was. It was dark, and--” He deflates, chest wound tight all over again. “Din. I’m so sorry.” He shakes his head at himself. He is supposed to be the one keeping them safe. Instead, they’re using up the last of their medical supplies on his mistakes.

“I have the dreams sometimes,” Din says, quietly.

Paz resists the impulse to reach for his throat and pushes the image of that other Din with the vibroblade out of mind.

Paz knows most Mandalorians suffer from what they’ve survived. He’s caught an elbow to the gut at least once sharing close quarters with Din, but with Paz’s voice in his ear and an arm loosely around his waist, he was able to talk Din round to reality. At least, he likes to think he helped. It’s happened less and less these weeks they’ve been travelling together.

The mission Paz received from their Armourer was simple enough: _find our people. Keep them safe. We will rebuild again._

Paz did not anticipate the first to cross his path would be their beroya, the one whose break with his Guild catalysed their scatter among the stars. He is proud that he did not punch the man upon their unlikely reunion on that wharf in Kamino. He blames his own weakness for instead offering his hand when the two of them found themselves alone. 

After years encamped in the maze of those warrens beneath the city of Nevarro, elbow-to-elbow with their vode, the silence was harrowing. Paz had dreamed of peace and quiet, to walk a day through those tunnels without someone accidentally bumping his armour, so crowded, they were becoming in their space. He imagined what he would do with himself if he were a man not needed by any person for anything, and imagined himself on verdant planets scaling trees tall enough to pierce the clouds. A strange and abrupt fancy.

But when he was truly alone, it was horrifying. Somehow, against the odds, among all the star systems and their decimated Creed, he found one of their own. It just happened to be Din Djarin.

Din was tribe. Din, he could protect.

Touching him might have been a mistake. And holding him…. 

There is a wound festering in Paz that only the tactile comfort of his fellow vod and foundling can soothe. But each time Paz drags one of them close through pretence or necessity, he has felt too much like a thief. _He_ is the true coward.

And he has stayed too long.

"See if you can set the kid down. If he was hurt, he will heal," Paz mutters, slowly pushing to his feet. He winces at the creak of his knees and fights the burn of tight muscles. Getting old, Vizsla. "I'll man the controls." By which he means he'll nap in the pilot's chair as he has a dozen times over.

"I-- wh--" Din stammers, likely deciding if he should fight Paz for the nobler route and offer the infantryman the cot instead.

It's not necessary. Paz is the one intruding.

“Hey.” Din stops him with a foot on the rung of the ladder to the cockpit. Kid cradled to his chest, Din crosses the hold to the small canvas bag of clothes by their cot. Paz catches the shirt thrown at his visor. “Put this on.” Din doesn’t look at him as he says it, swaying gently on the spot to rock the child. Paz smiles at the sight. “It’s cold in space.”

Paz looks down at his bare chest and back to the man studiously avoiding his eye. He’d forgotten. He salutes with the black long sleeve in hand. “Thanks.”

Alone in the familiar walls of the cockpit, Paz sinks into Din's usual seat with a sigh and closes his eyes against the bright wash of hyperspeed.

The pilot’s chair isn't so bad.

The quiet stillness of the narrow walls seep into him, stealing some of the tension from his body.

Paz has to physically claw all ten fingers into his thighs to resist the drift of his hand down between his legs. It's a contextual instinct: surrounded by the privacy of this space and slouched in this particular seat, the cockpit has become the only place he could find his release in private, cock hot in hand, pumping himself slick, slow, then building; a physiological relief that ushered him to sleep in the past, that let him uncover moments from his mental hoard and turn them over in his mind like precious jewels.

It feels wrong to do it here now that Din knows.

It’s just loneliness. Din is familiar, he’s here and he’s the closest Paz has to home. That's all it is. The cure should be company but somehow, when Din is near, that longing only grows worse.

There’s just something about standing at the beroya's side, back politely turned to don his armour while the other man washes his face and dresses for the day. The Crest's hold silent but for the shift of cloth, zips being pulled into place, armour clinking. Click, hiss, snap. Those rare, precious times when they wake before the baby.

It’s listening to the little one babble animatedly, cradled in Din's lap, dark eyes shining up at his Buir in worship. It’s watching Din's shoulders tremble with laughter, and Paz’s heart twisting at the distance stretched between them.

The quiet intimacy of their shared early rituals yields a contented warmth that had always gone unacknowledged, but now… inexplicably and undeservedly, Paz wonders what Din's face looks like. How have the decades changed him? Is his brow pinched from the sound of his ever-present scowl? Paz barely remembers his eyes, only that they were dark and made Paz want to protect him. How does Din look in sleep -- does he finally relax, or does he still frown as his mother used to tell of his father? Does he dimple when he smiles? Some mornings, Paz catches himself watching fondly when Din's hands fumble with the buckles of his beskar'gam, and it's growing more and more difficult to resist reaching out to help him.

He knows how steady those hands can be once Din is fully awake: stripping, cleaning and restocking his rifle in focused meditation, methodical and unhurried.

It’s not only quiet moments.

Paz has sat in the co-pilot seat, gripping the chair, jaw clenched, as Din rolls the Crest fleeing other hunters. He has tingled, listening to Din growl out final warnings, a particular tone of smoke and turned stone he only gets when faced with his peers. Paz has breathed a proud sigh of relief watching Din reduce other ships to gutters of flames and space debris. Paz has stared at the back of Din's shiny helm in those moments and it’s taken everything in him not to grasp that pauldron, shake him firmly, to praise Din as he deserves, _well done._

Despite their sleeping arrangements, Din does not appreciate being touched. Or praised. Not without his say so, outside their self-imposed evenings, still running on the Nevarro cycle. His body may crave a basic need that his higher mind rejects, but while he’s saying no or nothing at all, Paz will remain here and definitely not think about how the man blooms under his hands.

… Maybe... just one more time.

Eyes slipping shut, Paz inhales sharply at the sensory memory of Din burrowing down into his chest, hands tucking beneath Paz’s shoulders, straddling one of Paz’s thick thighs. The delicious way he squirmed closer when Paz looped his arms low on Din’s back, a soft groan in his throat. All the while, fighting the urge to draw Din in tighter. To bury his visor in the safe curve of Din's neck and tell him--

Tell him--

_I think I was wrong._

_I think I want to know you better._

_I think you should consider keeping the little one._

_I think you're one of the bravest and noblest among us._

Paz opens his eyes and glares into the whirlpool of white and blue, scowling at himself.

How the hell did he let this happen?

When did he become the person that has to bite his tongue because he only has unwelcome tributes to share, and that would just make Djarin shrink from him? His thoughts feel embarrassingly loud and irrationality urgent. Paz was lauded for his strength in the covert, but now he only feels weak because it hurts too much not to fill his hands with the shape of Din when they’re rested together, grip closing around a firm shoulder and hip, gently squeezing once he secured his fill, stifling a groan of relief.

Paz is a mockery. Shame bakes through him like fever. He should stop. If he was a better man, he would depart from a place where he had so clearly been declined.

The time passes quickly when one is stewing in self-loathing.

The ship shudders with their drop from light speed. 

Ahead of them, the green planet of Kaiela-5 looms large, atmosphere swirling with grey swathes of cloud and industrial pollution. Part scrapyard, part shipyard, and inexplicably also an entertainment production hub, the logs promised it should have someone with the engineering skills and parts they’re seeking. Importantly, it was also still on the Outer Rim and with enough population density that two Mandalorians with an obscure baby stood a good chance of being ignored.

An alert pops up, general broadcast from the planet’s government: a health advisory. Text only.

Paz frowns, bringing it up just as the door to the cockpit hisses open behind him. He freezes. A steady boot tread stops by his left. If he turned around, Paz would probably brush against Din.

“Kid’s resting,” Din says as an exhale of relief.

“We should stop sleeping together,” Paz blurts out.

A shocked silence rings through the cockpit. Paz feels a little shocked himself.

“O-okay….” Din’s voice lilts into an open question that Paz feels woefully unqualified to answer.

“I’m too big,” is the first thing his brain supplies, but the next sprig of a thought is reasonable. “We all get the dreams. But you can’t hold me down. That cot is too narrow. I won’t hurt either of you again.”

He refuses. From the corner of his eye, Din wavers into view, arms crossed over his front in judgment. Paz can’t tell if Din is looking at him or out the viewport.

“Wh…” Din glances around, white light bouncing off his helm. “Are you going to sleep in here?”

He’s conflicted by the fact Din doesn’t argue his point. Glad, because Paz is right. Disappointed, because a part of him was hoping Din might seek an excuse to stay close to him.

But he already learned the answer to that invitation, didn’t he?

“I thought we could take shifts.” Paz spins round in his seat, confident now in his burgeoning plan. “While one of us rests, the other pilots the ship. We’ll cover further distance that way. And I’d feel better than relying on automated perimeter alerts to potential threats.”

Din studies him, head tilted, his broad shoulders one long, distracting line of beskar. Paz lingers on the mudhorn signet of his pauldron. The contemplative silence breaks with Din’s small nod. “If that’s how you feel.”

Paz forces himself to smile so Din will take his feeling as pleased. “Then we’re agreed.”

Din scoffs under his breath. He turns to the blue message shimmering in the console’s projection. “What’s this? A health advisory?” They both lean in, Din bumping his shoulder as they scan it quickly. “Airborne… huh.”

Paz dismisses it with a gesture and takes hold of the steering controls. “In the entertainment hub. Not the yards where we’re going.”

The word ‘outbreak’ would be alarming to people who didn’t have Mandalorian buy’ce capable of filtering out both smoke and toxins.

“And we have these,” Din says, pointing at his visor in resonance with Paz’s thought.

He smirks. “Exactly.”

Once they break through the planet’s atmosphere, their comms light up with an incoming hail. Paz raises an eyebrow, glancing to Din and answering when the other man nods.

The comms crackle and blip, a soft, mechanised voice streaming in.

“Razor Crest, this is Kaiela-5 Ground Control. We have you on an entry vector to sector 22-11VD, please be advised the planet is on yellow band quarantine under classification of the New Republic. State the purpose of your business and your term of entry will be assessed.”

Paz blinks in surprise. A quarantine? That hadn’t been in the advisory they just read.

Din leans across him, pressing the button on the console to reply. “Ground control, this is Razor Crest. Our ship is in need of repair and the skills of an experienced engineer. We have no water and are low on resources.”

The comms crackle. “Roger that, stand by, Razor Crest.”

Din leans back with a hand on the back of Paz’s chair, watching the console speaker expectantly. Paz guides the ship through a voluminous field of grey, yellow clouds as tall as entire forests, eyes on the radar.

He inclines his head to the man at his side. “What do you want to do if they don’t--”

The clipped beep of the comms interrupts him. “Razor Crest, you are cleared for repair and re-supply. Set your vector to 14-02SP and prepare to submit for assessment upon landing.”

The shipyards are surprisingly quiet when they land. Paz would even use the word ‘deserted’. They’ve been directed to one of the towns on the border between the shipyards and the entertainment production centre, an odd choice, but they’re not about to draw attention by going against directions.

He frowns at the small squad in bright yellow protective gear that bolts across the landing field toward them.

“That can’t be good,” Din muses over his shoulder.

“Get the kid,” Paz says.

“Yep.” Din is already moving.

When the Crest’s ramp lowers, humid air billows into the ship, thick and sweet. Paz is surprised he can detect that even through the mask’s filters. Freshly awake, the kid squints against the wind buffeting him in the face, ears flapping and he buries his nose into his collar, burrowing low in the pouch on Din’s hip.

The five-person landing team in comically bright bodysuits seem entirely nonplussed by the giant gun Paz cocks against his hip. Two of them brace a cart between them. All of them wear grey face masks, air-tight. They look like something out of the archives Paz once read about post-contamination teams who visited the irradiated sites of Mandalore after the Purge.

He suddenly has a very bad feeling about this.

At the squad’s head, a small, stout figure brandishes a black baton. “What the hell are you doing here?” the shout pierces the wind, and it’s a testament to their projection they can be heard through the mask. They must have some form of amplification on their suits. “This is a restricted lockdown area--”

Din interrupts, raising his bare hands as though to balance the threat of the heavy cannon beside him. “We were directed here for repair and re-supply by Ground Control.”

 _“Ground Control?”_ The small, stout one rails, voice pitching with incredulity. “Those fuckers don’t know their ass from their mouth, this-- _what?”_ They point suddenly at the child on Din’s hips. “This one is bare!”

Paz growls, and the cannon hums to life with a flick of his wrist. “Hey, now.”

It’s possibly the first time in his life that he is ignored. It’s a novel experience. The squad are too busy yelling at each other.

_“Get this baby a mask!”_

There’s a mad scramble as the cart is pulled open and then one of the yellow figures is sprinting across to Din, only stopping when they’re confronted with the barrels of both Paz’s cannon and Din’s side blaster. A small mask is thrust at them, a grey contraption with straps and a shallow, cylindrical filter.

“Quick, put this on your child! The lower the exposure, the better their chances!” 

The earnest urgency in their voice only worsens the dread building in Paz’s chest. He lowers his cannon slightly.

“Din.”

The blaster is holstered and Din snatches the mask, ignoring the child’s noises of complaint as his large ears are negotiated through the straps and then the child’s sweet face disappears behind that morbid contraption.

The one who handed them the mask squeals as Paz grips them by the front of their bodysuit, yanking them forward.

“What the hell is going on here?”

Their hands tremble, raised high in surrender. “Y-you don’t know--?”

The short one with the black baton appears before Paz. That offending weapon is thrust at him directly, barely reaching his collar. “Quarantine!” They point at Din. “Quarantine! You are _all_ going into quarantine until you have been tested, and you _and your ship_ decontaminated. You flew through the fog on your way down and the fire plumes have taken Bliss into the atmosphere, you have been exposed.”

Paz must be hearing things. “Bliss?”

Din pushes the child protectively behind his hip. “Quarantine?”

But that short, stout one proves they are not impressed by two grown Mandalorians in the flesh. They point with their baton back towards the towering structures across the landing field.

“Move out!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Siri, google what to do when your sex pollen goes Chernobyl. Also, yes, this is a true to life comedy of how well some federal and state authorities coordinate with each other on global catastrophes, we all know it now.
> 
> To be clear, there will be no sexual content involving the baby. Amphetamines, which Bliss is loosely based on, affect infants in different but also very bad ways.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Permissions:** You do not need to ask for permission to make translations, podfics, fanfic or fanart for any of my stories-- I do ask that you link back to my original work and let me know because I would LOVE to share what you've created.


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